Wireless data networking allows users to receive data packets from virtually any location served by a wireless telecommunications provider. For instance, using GSM digital cellular phone service, mobile users can send and receive short message service (SMS) messages, browse the Internet, receive news and stock quote information, and send and receive email. Similar services are becoming available for other telecommunications services.
Wireless data packets may be sent to multiple mobile terminals at the same time, referred to as multicasting. Currently, systems such as WLAN, digital video broadcast (DVB) systems and digital audio broadcast (DAB) systems can be used to transfer multicasted data. In the future, UMTS or GPRS networks may also have the capability of supporting IP multicasting.
In order for a wireless system to hand over a mobile terminal from one cell to another while receiving a multicast session, the mobile terminal generally must scan all the possible frequencies to find the available neighboring broadcast cells (or channels) and check which neighboring cells (or channels) support its on-going multicast session. The time consumed for finding a cell that supports its on-going session may result in significant packet loss during handover. There is presently no means by which a mobile terminal can automatically or intelligently hand off a multicast session from one cell to another without performing the above mentioned extensive scanning. Thus, a method and system enabling a mobile terminal to make intelligent channel selections based on a repository of session information is needed.